Reorgs are the new promotion

Lightning Lessons

Practical skills & tools to accelerate your career

Reorgs are the new promotion

Hosted by Ethan Evans

Mon, Sep 22, 2025

7:00 PM UTC (30 minutes)

Virtual (Zoom)

Free to join

By continuing, you agree to Maven's Terms and Privacy Policy.

Invite your network

Go deeper with a course

Featured in Lenny’s List

Stuck at Senior Manager - How to Break Through to Executive

Ethan Evans

View syllabus

Mon, Sep 22, 2025

7:00 PM UTC (30 minutes)

Virtual (Zoom)

Free to join

Invite your network

Go deeper with a course

Featured in Lenny’s List

Stuck at Senior Manager - How to Break Through to Executive

Ethan Evans

View syllabus

What you'll learn

Half my career growth came from reorgs (not promotions)

Learn how to position yourself to be chosen and be setup for growth

Go around the classic promotion process and timeline

Reorgs happen with no approval process and no documents

Growth through new headcount is not working

With slow hiring and layoffs, the old advice of "grow a bigger team" is less common (and effective)

Live audience Q&A

We will end with audience Q&A. So bring your questions!

Why this topic matters

Reorgs are stressful, but they are also your moment. Most people freeze or panic when the org chart changes. Don't be that person. Learn to see reorgs for what they are: a reset button and a rare chance to stand out. This session will teach you how to spot hidden opportunities, step up while others step back, and take bold, specific actions that turn chaos into career growth.

You'll learn from

Ethan Evans

Former Amazon VP (15+ years); 70+ patents; led global teams of 800+

In Ethan's 15+ years at Amazon, he led global teams of 800+ and invented well-known businesses and products such as Prime Video, Amazon Video, Amazon Appstore, Merch by Amazon, Prime Gaming (formerly Twitch Prime), and Twitch Commerce.

Hold 70+ patents.
Reviewed 10,000+ resumes and conducted 2,500+ interviews.
Was an Amazon Bar Raiser and Bar Raiser Core Leader, responsible for training and maintaining Amazon's group of interview outcome facilitators.
Helped advocate for and draft the Amazon Leadership Principle (LP) “Ownership” — the words, “They never say ‘that’s not my job.’” are Ethan's.

Ethan has promoted 8 reports from Senior Manager (Amazon L7) to Director (Amazon L8), contributed to 25+ Director promotions, hired 10+ Directors internally and externally, drove the promotion of 3 engineers to Principal, and of his former reports 2 are current Amazon VPs (L10) and 5 are C-Suite outside of Amazon.

Ethan retired from Amazon as a Vice President in September 2020 to focus on paying forward his good fortune to others.

Prior to Amazon, Ethan spent 12 years at 3 startups.

Follow Ethan on LinkedIn and subscribe to his newsletter to get candid career advice.

1,200+ course alumni from: